Quote from KiDCoDEa :

so if u want high fps visible (for example i can do 150hz or 200hz on my monitor at certain res) nothing beats a vga crt for fluidness.
if your aim is 60fps (which is surely enuff for most games) then a dvi lcd is nice.
i have both, which is the optimal solution

Thanks. I think I'll stick with DVI with my LCD - the picture quality is far better at non-native resolutions. The VGA input seems to handle frame rates higher than 60 (when not VSYNCed) better than under DVI. Also strangely, it offers a few resolution options in windows in VGA mode that DVI doesn't, but many look awful. The scaling of non-native resolutions is handled better with the DVI input.

Do you know if there's a resolution (or number of pixels) where DVI chokes compared to VGA? I guess I'm not getting why a DVI triplehead would be a problem if driving digital LCDs...

KiDCoDEa,

You seem to know your monitors so you might be able to answer this for me. Is VGA or DVI better for smooth gameplay, where smoothness at the expense of picture clarity may be preferable?

I thought VGA might be worse because an LCD monitor has to convert the analogue signal to digital, where as DVI is already digital, but from what you and Matrox have said regarding this triplehead it sounds like DVI might be a bigger bandwidth burden. Does that impact smoothness at higher resolutions vs VGA, even with single LCD monitors?

Cheers,
Rob

Congratulations to you and Geraldine :clapclap:

Quote from Bawbag :

Rob, it wasn't a close battle, he was about 2 seconds ahead when the incident occured and I wasn't going faster to catch him as his rear left would have been gone by lap 8, we raced again and the same happend, small gap openeded, his tyre went red then I cought up, that's all we wanted to do, test how well 15 laps went, not get smashed off by a back marker.

But he was hardly smashed off by the backmarker. Maybe you should have been just as quick to type a friendly warning as to ban (again, I don't know if they'd been warned in prior races).

When running a server I've only banned someone once for deliberate wrecking and foul language and certainly wouldn't ban or kick people who are at least trying to race properly - I'd rather help them learn by making their experience fun and positive. The driver in question had braked and raced cleanly into the first corner - usually a reasonable sign that they're not out to spoil the race.

Anyway, as the ban was only 12hrs, life can go on...

Quote from Bawbag :

Anyway how can you enjoy racing something when your going that slow and having to let the leaders pass?

None of us would have enjoyed LFS as beginners if that was the case. There's so many track and car options available that most of us can be slow when we try a new combination. I've done very little RallyX and so would be considerably off the pace - doesn't mean I wouldn't enjoy it.

I'd sure enjoy racing for Toro Rosso in F1, but I'd be forever letting the leaders past

Quote from richy :

well we were there from qualifying so he didnt join mid race he was being lapped, he also said sorry but you banned him. and you can see he didnt even hit first place hard enough to make him lose control. i think you were just angry because you spun out and took it out on him. but thats ok i guess a lot of admins are like that.

if i timed out thats ok im not worried about that its not as if i were gonna stay when my friend was banned eh

just dont be so harsh with the bans please?

Without seeing any build up in prior races I don't know if there was any 'build up' to the ban i.e. previous incidents and/or warnings.

It did seem a little harsh if taken in isolation, especially as he did apologise and the leader wasn't badly affected. If the timing of the blue flags is captured accurately in replays, then your friend didn't get too much warning of the leaders approach and beginners don't often remember to check the track map to see if they're about to be caught. He had run wide and so his mirrors didn't show the leader approaching either. I disagree with Hyperactive as to me it didn't look intentional in the slightest.

A little harsh (again, taken in isolation), probably influenced a little by Bawbag's self induced spin in the middle of a close 15 lap battle.

I suggest your friend keeps practising... the positives of LFS online far out weigh the negative experiences...

Quote from Tweaker :

I think this is a good idea, however I think it only applies to a full-course caution of some sort. I don't know complete rules of some series, because the passing rule applies to certain racing series.

But my point is, the caution flags right now are just so simple, we don't have to wait for debri to be cleared or whatever, it's just in one area. I guess once the flag system is improved, it would be easier to make penalties like this.

For example:

-Drivers not complying to Blue Flags
-Black Flag system needed
-Once a green flag is shown after the presented yellow flag, it is safe to pass
-Pits open & closed

To name a few

Having to comply with blue flags would be nice, but they'd probably have to adjust when they are shown based on more than distance apart- I think at the moment if two cars are fairly evenly paced, the blue is shown a little too early for the car being lapped. It seems to be geared more towards warning slow cars being caught quite quickly. If you had a penalty system based on length of time being shown the blue some people would be forced to back off earlier than ideal to let someone by even though they could probably go for a few more laps without hindering the car they are being shown the blue flag for.

Quote from TheRealEddie :

I'm sure this is something thats way under the radar but given the number of yellow flags you will see during an (online) race, it would be nice to prohibit passing under a yellow flag.

Enforcement would be tricky, intuitively it could be enforced by requiring the offending driver to give up the position in a certain amount of time or track distance. Not sure though but it would be nice.

It would be nice to somehow force cars to take care when yellows appear, but like in real life it is hard to judge. Maybe setting a sector time quicker than a certain threshold for a given car could be used to judge someone (probably) didn't slow for a yellow flag.

In terms of not being allowed to pass how would you determine who you can and can't pass? e.g. if a car (or more than one car) crash and cause a yellow flag you should be able to pass them, but you may not easily identify recovering or crippled cars from someone who just slowed for the yellow in front of them.

If you just had a total 'no passing' rule you might end up with a queue of cars waiting for a spinner to get pointed in the right direction.

I think online racing might be just a little too chaotic for the server to be easily configured to make the right call in all yellow flag situations. e.g. a car simply delayed by a yellow incident should not be passed until the end of the yellow flag but a car that piles in and becomes part of the yellow flag causing incident should be legitimately passed.

Very, very tricky to implement....

Quote from Forbin :

That sounds like the pixel accuracy (something very important in FPS games) would be comprimised.

What kind of video card and CPU are you running? I can run LFS just as well at 1024x768 as I can at 2048x1280 with:

AthlonXP 3000+ (2.1GHz)
GF 6800GT 128MB
512MB PC3200 DDR SDRAM
Sony FW900 24" CRT

Just another reason CRT's are better than LCD's, no "native res" BS.

Not sure what you mean by pixel accuracy. All the COD2 wide aspect option is doing is squeezing 20% more into the view horizontally. On a 'normal' 4:3 monitor it would make things look thinner, but when displayed on a wide aspect monitor the proportions look normal.

The native resolution thing isn't a problem in games now that the native resolutions of large LCD's are so large - with so many pixels they scale very well. I'd say for LCDs, the refresh rate and importance of Vsync are more of an issue, especially for gaming, than being forced to run a native resolution. When it comes to windows desktop and applications you definitely want to be at a native resolution for the most crisp display, but for gaming it doesn't matter. For me the bigger problem is the aspect ratio, as my LCD doesn't support a 16:10 resolution below 1680x1050, the game has to support a 'wide aspect' option for 4:3 resolutions for me to get the right proportions at 4:3 or 5:4 resolutions.

I'm not sure what FPS you're getting at the resolutions you mention, but my aim is to find a setting where the PC can maintain 60FPS or higher. Then with VSYNC enabled (to ensure the LCD is as smooth as possible with no 'tearing') it will be locked at 60fps.

I have an AMD X2 4400 (the dual core buys me nothing in LFS - I can run LFS on one core and a virus scan on the other and see very little drop in FPS) and I have two 7800GTX in SLI configuration (again SLI buys me very little in LFS - I can force it into single GPU mode with little impact). Maybe if LFS is ever optimised for dual core and DX9 I'll get my 60FPS at 1680x1050 (or even 1920x1200) with a full grid, but I would think a 'wide aspect' option for lower 4:3 resolutions would be more likely in the short/medium term.

By the way I'm being picky - I run at 1680x1050 and get a smooth VSYNC'ed 60fps except for when the screen is really busy (e.g. first corner mayhem).

Quote from Bob Smith :

So do you mean the monitor actually does run at, say, 800x600, but the game pre-distorts the image so it appears correct?

That's what COD2 seems to do.

You select the resolution and then there is an option for Aspect Ratio. If you select 'wide 16:10' with any resolution it modifies the output to look correct on the 16:10 screen.

If I go into the monitors OSD menu and check the resolution and frequency it correctly reports the 4:3 resolution (1024x768 or 800x600 whatever resolution I chose). And even though 1024x768 is neither the native resolution or the correct pixel ratio it looks pretty sharp, but importantly is a lot smoother than the mega 16:10 resolutions.

Not sure how easy this would be to implement in LFS.

I'm not saying all 4:3 resolutions are low, just that the lower resolutions that larger 16:10 monitors support are 4:3. The lowest 16:10 resolution mine supports is 1680x1050, so to get the correct aspect ratio I have to run with that.

COD2 (as an example) allows the lower 4:3 resolutions to display as a 16:10 aspect ratio, even if the pixel reolution is 4:3 (i.e. if that option were selected on a 4:3 monitor it would look extremely squished horizontally).

In theory I could select 1600x1200 and select the 16:10 aspect ratio, but it would defeat my objective of running a lower resolution to ensure the frame rate stays high enough for smooth gameplay.

Is there any chance of adding the option of scaling a widescreen aspect ratio with the 4:3 or 5:4 resolutions?

Many larger widescreen monitors only support 16:10 or 16:9 ratios at insane resolutions (e.g 1920x1200, 1680x1050 or 1600x900). LFS supports these when the 'show non-square modes' option is checked but lower resolutions are at 4:3 or 5:4, making the cars look low and fat.

To get smoothest display out of many LCDs it is best to enable VSYNC but at the monster resolutions in the correct 16:10 ratio, that takes some serious computing power to maintain 60 or 75 FPS, especially when there are more than a couple of cars on track.

One neat feature in 'Call of Duty 2' is the ability to select any lower resolution and 'force' it to look like a 16:10 ratio, so on a widescreen monitor it looks perfect. You get the wider aspect ratio while running a 4:3 resolution. The larger 1920x1200 monitiors have so many pixels that running at a lower non-native resolution still looks very good (unlike my old 19" LCD which looked shit unless at the native 1280x1024). So I'm running COD2 at a resolution that allows the frame rate to stay at 60 (Vsync enabled) but makes the most of the widescreen monitor.

This would be a really nice feature in LFS - is it possible? Is it more that a scaling of the graphics?

I'm currently running LFS at 1680x1050 on a 24" widescreen LCD, which is smooth at 60fps when I'm the only car around, but is less smooth and dips into the 40s at the start of races.

This is my first suggestion for LFS, because I'm totally happy with the way it's going

Downloaded the demo, played it, uninstalled it and deleted it. I guess it wasn't a waste of an hour of my life, if only because it saved me from ever considering buying it. I'm a sucker for any racing game when in Electronics Boutique, as my dusty copy of 'Spirit of Speed 1937' will attest.

Typical Codemasters to claim 'Ultimate Racing Simulator'....illepall

IRL the only time my Malibu (yes I know it's shit) steering goes *REALLY* light when understeering is in the wet. In the dry it is not as noticeable.

In LFS, my DFP feedback is not as subtle as it was with my Wingman Formula Force, but I can still tell that it's understeering but the lightness isn't like a switch. It actually gets lighter under hard acceleration at the start than understeer. But overall the FFB in LFS is by far the best of the racing sims I've tried (most of them). Although I have RBR, I haven't played it much and I find it hard to compare rally with road racing as the style and feedback are totally different.

As for the feedback in GTL - for me it is far more vague than LFS, and even though understeer is very light, the FFB communicates very little else to me (except the normal canned vibration effects). You can feel when you're understeering but it's not very good at warning you're about to understeer. It was the same in GTR - underteer or oversteer was always something I had to anticipate rather than feel the limits, where as in LFS I have much more feedback through FFB to what the car is doing even before understeer/oversteer occur.

Quote from Seahorse :

...seeing as it's school half term.

Already? Damn, should have been a teacher

But then again, the holidays probably can't come quick enough working with a classroom full of mouthy kids you can't even throw board rubbers at anymore :weeping:

Anyone who has played any release of S2 so far has agreed to the attached agreement, whether they are happy just to play the Demo or have unlocked S1 or S2 content.

The S1 or S2 licence you have bought just buys you the extra content, and you also, by buying a licence, agreed to the following: http://www.liveforspeed.net/?page=agreement

At no point was anyone promised a timescale of update releases or regular development updates. Those who are so desperate for updates, you've made your point but no matter how much you ask for a fix to the aero or grip problems it's not going to make them come any quicker. The devs have acknowledged the problems (just do a search in the forums) and that they are working on them. I would definitely rather stick with what we've got than have a rushed fix that causes more complaints. It's much better to keep the physics patches infrequent and well tested - the continuity and quality of the public release would be far better for LFS in general. The balance of public alpha/beta testing to private testing is just about right IMO.

The nature of the project is just different to most commercial games, and in many ways you get a better deal because of the lack of commercial pressures. For example I own GTR which was released with more bugs than I've ever seen in LFS alpha and beta releases. It has had a few patches but we can now (with GTR2 being the developers focus) assume it's not getting anymore updates. Once GTR2 is released I'm not expecting my GTR licence to give me anything. In actual fact due to the OTT starfarce protection GTR doesn't actually run on my newest PC. GTR cost $40 and GTR2 (if I choose to buy - I'm usually a sucker) will be approx another $40 - way more than LFS. I fully expect (based on GTR) after 12 months of getting a buggy rushed release of GTR2 patched up to something half as stable as LFS, it'll be long forgotten by the developers (and a large proportion of those who bought it too), where as the LFS development and community will still be going strong (barring disaster).

EDIT: Scawen has (again) let you all know the development continues on the other 'how about a full version' thread. Can those desperate for an update please settle down and either play LFS as it is, or play something else until you get your magic update patch? Stating the 'bugs' again and again isn't going to get them fixed any quicker, just like Scawen explaining the development process and the LFS licence system doesn't seem to get through to some people

Last edited by Rob76, Sun 12 Feb 2006, 19:05.

Quote from Racer Y :

You know, everyone says that. but I don't like to look at it that way.
Because looking at it that way, to me means paying about 65$ (US)
for a game that I can't get all of yet. That just SOUNDS wrong.
espescially when complete games here are around $50. It sounds better to me if you call S-1 a complete game and S-2 and 3 expansion packs.
then it sounds like a hell of a deal.

$65 does sound pricey (Xbox 360 pricey) if you had to front up the cash in one go. Somebody new to LFS when S3 is realeased in 200x may find it a little steep but for those of us that have been with it since 2003 have already had more than our money's worth Also, 36 quid is just about right for a full price game in the UK. It's the current shitty dollar that makes it seem expensive here in the US.

As you say, treating S2 and S3 as expansion packs also makes it seem great value, but the best way for me is to work out the $/hours enjoyment I've got out of LFS. So far the only computer games that probably challenges LFS in this measurement were some of the games on my old Speccy (cost the princely sum of £2.99 back in the 80's). F1GP on the Amiga may have soaked up almost as much of my life as LFS, but it cost me more than I've spent on LFS so far....

Quote from Forbin :

Teehee....

2048x1280

Along with 8xAA/16xAF. Beat that.

I have screenshots if you want to see them.

What monitor is that? If my bonus is in my March pay cheque (like it was promised), after a few beers :drunk: I'm hoping to get a widescreen LCD. Does anyone recomend a particular model? Also, does LFS support widescreen with a wider view (hopefully see the passenger side wing mirror without a stupid FOV setting)?

BTW I'm currently on 1280x1024

Congratulations to LFS and Victor :clapclap::drink:

AutoSimSport rarely mention LFS beyond a couple of dismissive words. They're usually stuck so far up rFactor and GTR's arse that they were surprised by the margin of LFS's victory.

Quote from deggis :

I already asked about this on some other thread. I don't undestand how can anyone call LFS's damage model good at the current stage? Of course the dynamic way it's been done is way better than "scripted damage model" but currently it lacks so many things.

The damage model is good because it models the important bit well (suspension damage) without focusing on the eye candy.

Moving forwards I'd like to see aero damage modeled next, then maybe engine/cooling damage. For me improvements to the visuals (e.g debris falling off, etc.) should be last on the list, yet in many other sims all you get is the flashy visual damage, with possibly a rudimentary performance damage model thrown in.

LFS, for me, even without aero damage, has the most subtle damage model of any sim, which stems from the strong physics model. Yes there are bugs and need for improvement, but as with all things in LFS, what we have at this stage is good and it's only going to get better and better....

Quote from AndroidXP :

Modding/adding cars and tracks will very likely not be implemented in S2, a better guess would be with or after S3. The reason for this is, with the game developing all the time, the tools are being modified too and it simply wouldn't make sense to release tools that have to be relearned every few weeks.

Personally, I'm rater glad we don't have that yet. The amount of car/track combinations is pretty huge even now and many combos don't even get played at all (it seems). I doubt adding mods would help this case in any way.

I think this is part of why I can always find a race to join even late in the evening 5 or 6 hours out of sync with Europe (the biggest LFS market). Start allowing mods and suddenly the number of players thins out over more servers, and the extra players who might be attracted to LFS if it was moddable probably wouldn't compensate.

In FPS type games where the number of players online is orders of magnitude larger than LFS, mods, maps and total conversions are great, but in the niche area of online racing I think one of LFS's strengths is that the content is currently tightly controlled. OK, in rFactor I can fire up a pretty good recreation of Lime Rock Park and/or run the F3 mod, but it's a total ball ache ensuring you have the up to date version of any mod before you even attempt to find someone online who wants to race with it.

So I'd rather see LFS opened up to modding only once the project is totally finished (and from what I gather that's when S3 'final' is released).

Quote from NetDemon01 :

I don't know all the legal issues surrounding something like this. The users paid for the license to play the game, aren't they allowed to play it however they want?(unfortunately that means some wanting to be wreckers). Taking away their priviledge to play after they have paid doesn't seem legal but again thats just a guess. Maybe since this is a privately developed game the devs can do to the users as they wish. Personally I wouldnt mind seeing licenses revoked for these wreckers, was just curious about these issues.

The following (in the licence agreement they agreed to when they purchased S2) may be a way to ban those wreckers regarded as 'disruptive':

"1.5 Extreme disruptive or offensive behaviour by a user, towards the developers or members of the community, may result in temporary or permanent suspension of the user's Live for Speed license."

Maybe an intial warning email would be in order after the first report of wrecking (with replay evidence), before bans are issued. The main problem as stated previously is the time and effort required to police it.

I'm a sucker who buys pretty much every race sim going. Before LFS came along GPL and the various NASCAR releases were the only sims I raced regularly and I thought Papyrus were gods. I had Indy 500, Indycar I & II, F1GP, GP2 and GP3, various Ubisoft efforts and various EA efforts (F1 1999-2001 and F1C). All had their moments but eventually fell by the wayside. I even had Spirit of Speed 1937 illepall, which was absolutely terrible.

LFS was the first sim to have lasting power, mainly due to the great online racing, great community and the ongoing efforts of the devs. Since LFS I've tried GTR, rFactor and now GTL. GTR and rFactor are pretty much forgotten (I still keep an occasional eye out for the rFactor mod that'll bring me to fire it back up), and although rFactor improved on GTR's rather poor online experience it was still way behind LFS. As to rFactor's long term threat to LFS, I think LFS will outlast it. For many rFactor's biggest strength is it's openness to modding, but the huge variety of mods that will appear will actually spread the online racers more thinly. The clunky method of mod switching within rFactor doesn't help matters either. In contrast, the tightly controlled content of LFS means the community is much more close-nit.

GTL is still taking up some of my time (the classic GT cars are keeping me interested) but its physics (despite claims in this thread to their superiority) just don't, after extended play, feel as comprehensive as LFS. Yes LFS as it currently stands has room for improvement, but it's being developed and they will improve. Beyond a few bug fix patches, GTL is what it is, with no hope of improvement. Also the sounds in GTL are on the surface very nice, but it's amazing (when I fire LFS back up) how communicative the methods employed in LFS are compared to GTL.

I for one hope the devs keep enjoying what they're doing, the way they are doing it. As long as they do, and the development continues, I think LFS will outlive many of the current and future sims. I'll probably never learn, and will continue to buy whatever sims are released but LFS will be the sim I come back to once I'm bored of them.

I may have thought Papyrus were gods, but I have since seen the light. Scawen and co are the true racing sim gods.....

Last edited by Rob76, Mon 19 Dec 2005, 05:26.

The latest 81.94 drivers seem to have cured the lockup issues (fingers crossed).

Quote from steve30x :

they have released the XP64 drivers as i have quoted from the wingman website

I have downloaded the XP64 drivers and i am getting myself a DFP in 2 weeks time.

The problem is that v4.60 Wingman software (64bit or 32bit) doesn't support the older red Wingman Formula Force. For people on 32bit Windows, they have to use older Wingman software/drivers, but those with 64bit OS will not be able to use the WFF.

I have a DFP now, although my old WFF was my backup. The old wheel is still great (probably better than the DFP for feel and precision) but the 180 degree lock was a little small for all but formula cars and the pedals were a bit shit and more like switches (although they never had calibration problems). Now my new PC has Win XP x64 the WFF is only for use with my old PC.

The DFP is a good choice (and the x64 drivers work fine) - the adjustable steering lock works really well in LFS (just ensure you remember to adjust in Windows Control Panel AND LFS when you switch cars, and ensure the 'wheel turn compensation' in LFS is set to 0). The pedals are OK and have much more useable travel than the WFF pedals, but the calibration/pot problem usually strikes at annoying times. A can of spray pot cleaner and 10 minutes of time usually fixes them for a month or so.